REALITY TV
TV
MOVIES
MUSIC
CELEBRITY
About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Use Accuracy & Fairness Corrections & Clarifications Ethics Code Your Ad Choices
© MEAWW All rights reserved
MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

US Air Force veteran shoots wife, triplet daughters before setting the house on fire and killing himself

A US Air Force veteran killed his wife and one of their daughters before he set their family home on fire and killed himself in a terrible double murder and suicide in Alabama
UPDATED MAR 11, 2020
(Source:Getty Images)
(Source:Getty Images)

A US Air Force veteran has killed his wife and one of their triplet daughters before he set their family home on fire and killed himself in a terrible double murder and suicide. 51-year-old Bob Orsi killed his 44-year-old wife Charlene and one of their triplet daughters, 12, at the family home in Wetumpka, Alabama, on July 7 at approximately 6 pm.

The other two triplet daughters were also shot multiple times but they survived their injuries and are in the hospital. The couples' 13-year-old daughter escaped from the scene and is unharmed. Orsi set the house ablaze and killed himself after he shot his family.

Court records have shown that Charlene had filed for divorce from her estranged husband only nine days before the murders and she had been granted sole custody of their four daughters.

It is still unclear how long the couple had been living apart from each other but Charlene, who worked as a teacher in an elementary school, had cited irreconcilable differences in the divorce papers that were filed on June 28. Bob denied the claim that was made in the divorce papers. According to the Daily Mail, the couple had both served in the Air Force and had married each other in 1994. Orsi used to work as a Senior Master Sergeant at the Maxwell Air Base in Montgomery. His military records have still not been made public.


ed the mother and the one triplet who died on social media on July 8. Charlene's half-sister, Annette Aurelio Smallwood, wrote on Facebook: "She was taken from this world way too soon and even more heartbreaking so was one of my nieces. We may never understand the why but as hard as it is I have to put my faith in God. Please continue to pray for my three nieces, my Dad and stepmom as they move forward today."

In another tragic case that took place in Washington state, the authorities revealed that a US airman shot dead his wife and two young children as they were asleep in bed. He then called 911 and confessed to the murders before he killed himself. 29-year-old Clinton Field worked as an administrative worker in the US Air Force at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord. 

According to The News Tribune of Tacoma, Investigators in the case had said that Field had shot and killed his son, 2-year-old Ashen, and his daughter, 4-year-old Ava, as they were both in bed after midnight on March 13.

He then shot dead his wife, Samantha, while she was also asleep. Before taking his own life, he posted a message on Facebook and then sent a text message to his father. At approximately 1 a.m. on March 13, he called 911.

Ed Troyer, a Pierce County Sheriff's Detective, announced that Field confessed to murdering his family. He said: "He thanked us for our time, but said by the time we got there he would be deceased as well, and he followed through with that." Dispatchers that day were desperately trying to make contact with Field and get him back online as the SWAT team was rushing to his house but as he said over the phone, it was too late.

Investigators found the gruesome scene in the home the family stayed in near Spanaway, which is 45 miles south of Seattle. Field had shot himself in the bedroom he shared with his wife. His body was discovered only a few feet away from hers. Detectives were also able to recover a handgun from the bedroom.

The detectives discovered at a later time that Field had been depressed for many years and that he had gone for counseling sessions often. He had reportedly spoken about taking his own life many times before and was also said to have been upset over the marriage that was on the brink of collapse. Investigators believed that it was only a matter of time before a divorce was announced.

The authorities said that the family was originally from the East Coast. Field was from Florida while Samantha was from New Hampshire. Detectives said that the couple had moved to the Northwest area less than a year prior to their deaths after the Air Force man was deployed to Korea. According to Troyer, there had been no record of any domestic violence complaints from the Field household.

Troyer told KING-TV in an interview: "This is a tragic case. We don’t know what led up to it. We don’t have any background. We need to try and determine why this happened, and the reason why we want to determine why is because maybe we can find something that will stop this from happening again in the future with somebody else that may be in crisis or having a problem." 

The broker who sold the house to the Fields' about a year ago, Daine Patton, said: "It really breaks my heart for those kids to be killed by their father. That's horrible." US Air Force personnel from JBLM had joined the local police in the investigation.

RELATED TOPICS SEATTLE NEWS ALABAMA NEWS
POPULAR ON MEAWW
MORE ON MEAWW